The best shots

The two best shots of the NCCA Championship game were not even published in The News & Observer.

As Coach K stood all alone at the center of the court looking around as the remaining crowd continued to celebrate, he looked up in the balcony where a lone woman stood. She then returned a smile and and blew a kiss.

Coach K's face lit up, and with a broad smile he blew a kiss to her, his wife!

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Underage drinking, community problem

As the dedicated investigator for alcohol-related matters for the Chapel Hill Police Department, I read Mary Carey’s March 29 column “Unilateral decision” (CHN, nando.com/158) with interest as we are committed to the protection of our youth and to addressing any and all issues regarding “social hosts” through both education and enforcement. I share her concerns about those households where alcohol is provided for under-aged persons.

The Chapel Hill Police Department actively addresses underage consumption issues in establishments as well as those that occur in private residences. The tools we use in these investigations are as basic as “knock and talk” and range upward in complexity to surveillance, search warrants, and the use of informants. We have responded to multiple complaints of underage drinking in private residences and we apply these techniques with successful outcomes.

There are a variety of consequences for those who violate the alcohol laws surrounding underage consumption. Criminally, individuals can face charges such as contributing to the delinquency of a minor, giving alcohol to a person under 21 along with aid and abet violations for underage possession and consumption. Civilly, individuals can be held liable under Dram Shop laws for injuries sustained or property damage by an intoxicated person they were hosting. Civil penalties by statute are limited to $500,000 but under common law there is no limit.

Underage drinking is a community problem, and without the community’s help those incidents occurring in private residences are difficult to detect and prosecute. Most often, unfortunately, these are discovered after a horrific incident or other police involvement. We ask our neighbors throughout the community to be proactive participants and partners in helping prevent these incidents.

The Chapel Hill Police Department is committed to protecting our youth. Be a part of our team. If you know of or suspect underage violations you can report them anonymously via the TIPS line at 888-888-TIPS. You may also call 911 to report these violations.

Mike Mineer

Alcohol Law Enforcement Investigator

Chapel Hill Police Department

Bait and switch

Chapel Hill Town Councilwoman Maria Palmer recently penned an open letter to the county commissioners defending approval of the Ephesus-Fordham (E-F) plan. Her defense is yet another unfortunate misrepresentation of what actually went down.

The E-F rezoning that council adopted last May indeed had the enthusiastic backing of E-F landowners, real estate developers and their allies. However, we expect our elected officials to balance the interests of those who profit from intensifying land use in our town with the interests of the town residents, including those of us who live adjacent to and patronize the E-F district. Palmer insultingly and baselessly characterized as an embarrassing “blighted area.”

Many of us supported the original E-F proposals for roadway improvements to increase safety and reduce traffic congestion, tasteful building height increases (i.e., five stories along Fordham stepping down to 2-3 stories around the periphery of the district) and the creation of 250 to 400 new residential units to help address our need for more affordable or workforce housing. These community expectations for redeveloping the area were codified in the Ephesus-Fordham Small Area Plan (SAP) that Town Council formally adopted in 2011.

We even saw the merit of giving form-based-code (FBC) a try, if it maintained Chapel Hill’s high standards for new development. The draft FBC, however, fell far short of our expectations, and council rejected almost all the well-researched suggestions residents proposed for improving it.

As a result, we feel that we have been the victims of a classic bait-and-switch. The human-scale building designs envisioned in the SAP were replaced with seven-story maximums almost everywhere. The approved new residential units now number 1,495 with significant implications for traffic congestion, school crowding, a net loss of affordable housing, and higher taxes!

If the last election was a referendum on the E-F project – a questionable assertion – it certainly was not a vote to give developers free rein either in our “embarrassing” end of town or over by Southern Village where the massive Obey Creek proposal is being pushed, hard.

Charles Humble

This letter also was signed by Frank W. Dain, Chris Deschene, Jody Jarowey Cort and Ellen Boylan, David Adams, Sharon Epstein and Erin Schwie Langston

Chapel Hill

These three things

I have to disagree with much of what Mr Vaden said in his column “Income mobility myth” (CHN, nando.com/157).

His topic of course is “Income Inequality.” I have to ask first, what is the objective of those crusading against income inequality? Is it that everyone have equal incomes? Do they want the doctor they see paid the same as the janitor who cleans his office? Are they advocating socialism? Because if they are, they should know that everywhere it has been tried, even in police states, it has failed miserably.

The solution put forth by the group in Chapel Hill “don't participate in the capitalistic economy” is just silly.

My main critique of the piece however is the notion that it is difficult to rise out of the bottom 20 percent of family income if you are born into that income strata. The data indicates otherwise. To rise out of poverty you only have to do three things. Finish high school. Get married and stay married and don't have children before you are married. Responsible choices. If you do these three things your chances of staying in poverty are about 3 percent. If you don't do these three things you will probably stay poor.

The solution to low-performing schools is school choice and involved parents.

Government is not the solution to the problem. In the last fifty years we have spent untold trillions off dollars on welfare programs and the poverty rate has not budged. We have only succeeded in making the poor more comfortable. Perhaps too comfortable.

You do not solve poverty by taking money from those who work and pay taxes and giving it to those who don't.

Obama's stimulus program dollars went to crony capitalists like Solyndra. Cutting back on unemployment benefits encouraged many folks to go back to work. Medicaid expansion is not free. It is paid for with our tax dollars and throwing more money at education does not buy better outcomes.

Vincent M. DiSandro Sr.

Hillsborough

Better lives

People have written and ordered and killed to get their way for thousands of years. The anger and jealousy and wars have not brought ALL of us humans better lives.

Some children, blacks, Indians, Muslims, women, people who live in poverty, and other oppressed people ask for what they pray for each day – for every person to start loving themselves and every other human being. Maybe all of our love (which comes from Spirit) will help the life of every single person.

Sara Smith

Carrboro

Letters policy

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